Beginners Luck

An iconic modern house gets a starring role in a new film

The lead characters in Mike Mills's new film, Beginners, are Oliver (Ewan McGregor), a solitary graphic designer in his mid-30s; his father, Hal (Christopher Plummer), who boldly comes out of the closet in his seventies; and Anna (Mélanie Laurent), a free-spirited Frenchwoman with whom Oliver falls in love. The secondary characters are a charming Jack Russell terrier and a house—not just any house, but Los Angeles's iconic Lovell House, built in the 1920s in the International Style by architect Richard Neutra.

Neutra's house is no stranger to movie stardom. In 1997 it appeared in L.A. Confidential, where its geometric exterior and a famous interior staircase surrounded by windows enhanced the film's California-noir aesthetic. But the makers of Beginners wanted the structure to look more like an actual residence, which it is—a family, the Toppers, has been living there for over four decades. "I made sure not to shoot the super-signature Lovell House things," says Mills. "Instead I stuck to the smaller parts of the house, so a lot of the Topper family's stuff is in there. The clutter in the kitchen is their clutter." The building has a "nice, lived-in feel," says McGregor. "It's not been modernized in any way, and the kitchen has the kind of patina that life puts on over the years."

Beginners is based on the lives of Mills' parents, who collected folk art. "A lot of it's in the movie—the Thonet chairs and African statues," he says. "There's a beautiful Tiffany lamp near the couch that was my dad's, and it really reminds me of him." Of course, using family pieces had the benefit of being economical. "It's cheaper bringing my parents' Thonet chair than renting one."